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eorge of the Jungle as Mr. Fantastic and Tim Robbins as Dr. Doom ("Is Fraser Fantastic?") are probably the worst casting decisions since Halle Berry as Catwoman. What's next, Janeane Garofalo as the Invisible Woman?
If this is the casting agent's train of thought, I expect to see William H. Macy as another contender for Doom and Ashton Kutcher getting a look in as The Thing.
I know they're comic-book characters, but how much disbelief is the audience expected to suspend?
Yuri Shukost
yuri01(at)iprimus.com.au
read with amusement the endless stream of letters that are sent about how "sci-fi is dying." Then I think back to the pre-1977 era, when science fiction was pretty hard to find at all. Sure, you had Star Trek, and if you could find it, Doctor Who, and some books published, but science fiction was definitely on the fringe.
Contrast that with what we have now. We actually have a SCI FI Channel. With the 'Net, we have literally thousands of places to go online and find virtually any sort of information desired. We have an ever-increasing number of successful sci-fi and fantasy movie franchises.
And have you made an honest comparison of the "classic" writing with contemporary writing? Sure, some of the books published these days are just plain bad. But back then, even the classics were bad. I just recently read van Vogt's Slan, and I have to tell you, the writing was not much better than a Hardy Boys novel. I'm sure the concept was ingenious for its time, but it had little going for it other than that.
Then look at what is published now. Science-fiction books are regularly on the bestseller lists. We have science fiction entering other areas without shame (consider J.D. Robb's In Death series, for example). And the quality of writing and publishers expectations are light years beyond what was acceptable. If van Vogt were to walk into a publisher today with Slan as it was published, he'd be laughed at, or at best told to come back when he had believable characters.
I think the problem today is not that science fiction is dying, but rather that it has become so mainstream that the sheer abundance of it makes it more and more difficult to find that "wow" story that, at one time, took little more than an idea. Now, not only do we demand the idea, we
demand that it have an attractive cover and have writing that isn't painful to read and have plot and believable characters and dialogue that doesn't make us groan.
Burt Smith
burt(at)pslashg.org
es, it is frustrating to pay out $100+ for a season of your favorite
series. ("DVD Prices Gouge the Fans"). However, I remember a time, not too
long ago, that you could only get series like The Next Generation through vendors like Columbia House at $24.95 per tape, with only two episodes on a tape! With seven seasons worth of episodes and over 100 episodes in its run, I'll be happy to pay only $100+ for a full season in one shot! And in this case, there was no such thing as "special features" included on tapes!
Just remember what price we paid before the glory of DVD ... and what we may get in the future that may cost us even less!
Jonathan Heisey-Grove
jgrove(at)weymouthdesign.com
his is in response Ray Bradbury's comments ("Bradbury Slams Moore") on Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.
I agree that Mr. Moore should (if, in fact, he didn't) have gotten permission to use the title since, it is quite obviously a reference to the Bradbury book. But does this make him a horrible person ... uh, no. Mr. Bradbury, if you have a problem with Mr. Moore, then let's hear the real reason.
Brian Taam
ganesha23a(at)yahoo.com
ichael Moore is a screwed a--hole, that is what I think about that
case," railed "legendary SF author" Ray Bradbury about Moore's documentary
Fahrenheit 9/11 ("Bradbury Slams Moore"). "He stole my title and changed the numbers without ever asking me for permission."
Mr. Bradbury, please turn down the heat. Last time I checked the dictionary, "Fahrenheit" remains an un-copyrighted word. The idea that Moore "stole" anything from you is, well, fantasy, unbecoming a master of it.
Fahrenheit 451 implied the temperature at which paper ignites, but your number was strictly arbitrary and based on no scientific fact. Which begs the question: Which Fahrenheit is higher—the temperature at which film burns or your current inflammatory state?
Kevin Ahearn
kahearn(at)netpub.net
read all the letters that come into [Science Fiction Weekly] about how good or how bad
some sci-fi show are. Well, take a look at what I have to put up with—I live in the Republic of Ireland, where our TV stations don't do sci-fi. Well, I should re-phrase that—they show Stargate at 2 a.m. or show Odyssey 5, which only lasted one year, not surprising the writers on that show lost the plot half-way through. The only way I can watch sci-fi is on satellite, which costs over $1,000 a year.
I look at your web site, praying that SCI FI UK will pick up some of [SCI FI's] shows and TV movies. ... So please, shut up—you have it all: a great channel (SCI FI), TV channels that are willing to take a chance on shows that are not reality [TV] or soap operas, and new films coming out every few weeks. Well, that's my rant.
Colum Dillon
colum(at)staeducational.com
he huge ocean wave that strikes NYC [in the film The Day After Tomorrow] doesn't seem to have any realistic effect on Manhattan's buildings. Structurally, buildings are designed to resist toppling by the wind, a force which is about 200 times less strong than a slamming seawater wave! The movie's skyscrapers never even shudder en masse, when they ought to be almost instantly converted into beach debris!
In a more technical vein, I've written about this cinematic special-effects oddity as a blog: Go to www.geographos.blogspot.com for a 28 May 2004 entry, "The Day After Tomorrow."
Richard Cathcart
rbcathcart(at)msn.com
find it interesting that so many people are commenting on the alien Nazis at the end of Enterprise ("Enterprise Ended Without Enjoyment", "Enterprise Is a Business First"). They seem to me to be totally out of line. Why not wait until we see how this story line progresses and is resolved before being negative? It may very well make good sense and be a good story. I don't understand why people just can't seem to simply enjoy the show, characters and stories for what they are, Star Trek in the here and now. They would, I fear, kill the very thing they value. Star Trek is still one of the very, very few quality sci-fi shows on TV, period. Let it be and enjoy. If they really want to bash something, try politics. As for me, I'm looking forward to another season of Enterprise, and waiting to see how this all plays out.
Terry L. Flatt
flatt(at)enter.net
need to disagree with James Stewart ("Enterprise Is a Business First"). The greatest episodes of Star Trek have been the time-travel episodes. "City on the Edge of Forever" is the finest episode of original Trek with its conundrum about peace movements
and war. Also, I liked the episodes where they deal with Gary Seven and the cold war in the '60s and the one where they accidentally go back in time and intercept a fighter pilot who still needs to father a child who will go to Saturn.
The two finest Star Trek movies were Star Trek: The Voyage Home and First
Contact—both involving time travel.
That said, I was jarred to find the Nazi alien at the end of Enterprise's season, but I don't think it's time travel. I think at some point they were thrown into a parallel universe. The interesting question is when. It could have been the season before last—that the Xindi attack on Florida didn't happen in this universe—preserving the history better for the Trek
purists, yet letting this one ship have more than Kirk's Enterprise technologically.
(I understand how given our technology of today is ahead of Kirk's that it would be hard to hold Archer's time to less than what we have. Making it plausible to the Trek universe is the creative trick.)
More likely, they were thrown into a parallel universe when they destroyed the Xindi weapon. I can't wait to find out. It might mean Xindi's and the Endorians are also in the wrong universe, people to work with to get home.
Unlike many, I thought Enterprise redeemed it self this season. It's execution of the process of what happens that makes an interesting story, not that we knew or didn't know Earth would survive. And Enterprise told some very good stories this past year. In most movies, you know the hero will survive, too.
However, as happy as I am that Enterprise was renewed, someone needs to send UPN to a shrink. Friday night at 9 is going from the frying pan into the fire—up against Joan of Arcadia AND Stargate. Maybe if fans are lucky, Stargate will be in reruns when Trek comes on and vice versa like in previous seasons. UPN should have learned from the encroachment of Smallville, which surely hurt Enterprise's ratings, to not put the show up against other genre shows.
Barbara Goldstein
psifidoll(at)comcast.net
can't believe I waited almost two years for [Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban]. It's not just that
it's not as good as the earlier Potter films. It's not. Or that the director put his own dark view into the third Potter installment. He did. It's that, this is just not a good movie. It's choppy, and lacks a cinematic flow. He apparently wrote his own story, hijacking J.K. Rowling's cast and some of her plotline, but only some.
Unlike the earlier two Potters films, [director] Alfonso Cuarón departs greatly from the book. After seeing what he has done to this beloved young people's series, I'd say Alfonso Cuarón should not even be allowed to direct a home video. The first two movies had laid groundwork for the world of Potter and his cohorts. We knew his school, its grounds, his home, the shops in Diagon Alley. Apparently Alfonso Cuarón has never been to this land. In fact, he may never have heard of the place. With luck, Warner Brothers and Rowling will be able to save this loveable tale before Alfonso dresses Hermione Granger up like a Britney Spears want-a-be, in
shorts and a crop top. It does not do Harry Potter or the J.K. Rowling books justice. Unlike the other Potter films, I will not go see this one more that once. I'll wait for the next movie and hope it's better.
Michael W. Ryan
michaelw.ryan(at)intergraph.com
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